The Eagle's Vengeance Read online

  The king leapt to his feet, pointing a trembling finger at the kneeling figure before him.

  ‘Behead him!’ He stepped forward, clenching his hand into a fist. ‘I’ll nail your ears to my roof beams, you rotting cocked spawn of a deformed whore! I’ll throw your guts to my dogs to play with! I’ll …’

  He stopped in mid-sentence, shocked to feel the sudden unnerving prick of cold iron on the back of his neck. Calgus raised an eyebrow at him, tipping his head to one side in a deliberate caricature of the king’s posture a moment before.

  ‘As is so often the case, the single most terrifying moment of your life can come just when you least expect it, eh Naradoc? I experienced mine alongside your brother, when I realised that the Roman camp we were storming was nothing more than bait to lure us into a trap, bait your revered brother was no more able to resist taking than a dog with the scent of a bitch in heat. He was a headstrong, foolish man, Naradoc, and if he had been just a little more calculating he might still be wearing that crown, with you sat behind him in a position rather better suited to your limited abilities. Instead of that you’re now experiencing the bowel-loosening sensation of a sword-point in your back where there should be stout noblemen lined up behind you, if you’d had the intelligence and ruthlessness to keep them there. I would call you King Naradoc, if it wasn’t so obvious to both of us that you’re no longer the king of anything more substantial than the shit that’s trying to burst its way out of your backside. ’

  Naradoc stared helplessly down into Calgus’s eyes, realising with a further, sickening lurch of his stomach that the crippled Selgovae was shaking his head at him with a look that was more pity than contempt.

  ‘Do take a look around you, your majesty, and see what remains of your kingdom.’

  Naradoc turned his head to meet his family’s eyes with a sidelong gaze, only to find their return stares expressionless for the most part. His brother had the good grace to look vaguely embarrassed, but his uncle, cousin and nephew all wore faces that might as well have been crafted from stone. The man whose sword was prickling the back of his neck, the hunt master Scar who, he realised with a defeated sag of his shoulders, had been his uncle’s sworn man since Brem had rescued him from the battlefield and nursed him back to health, stared back without any expression capable of moving the mask of scar tissue that clung lopsidedly to his face. The king tried to speak, but the words came out as no more than a whispered croak.

  ‘You bastards …’

  Calgus laughed at his bitterness.

  ‘They’re just realists, Naradoc. Your younger brother gets the crown, that’s obvious enough. Your mother’s brother Brem gets your wife, for whom he tells me he has long harboured urges hardly fitting in a man when expressed towards his queen. He tells me that he plans to spread her legs in your bed quickly enough though, so the status will hardly matter. His son, your cousin, gets your oldest daughter, who I’m sure you will be the first to admit is of the age to be bedded. I’m sure she’ll give him a fine crop of sons with hips like those. And your brother’s son gets your younger girl child. She may be a little young for the marital bed, but he’s only a boy himself. I’m sure they’ll work it out together, eh? And you …’

  He paused for a moment, waving a hand at the men behind the king.

  ‘My lords, whilst I am comfortable enough in this position of supplication, it might be more fitting if I were to continue my employment as the new king’s adviser on my feet?’

  A pair of men stepped forward at a signal from Naradoc’s brother, helping the Selgovae back into a standing position. He bowed his head to the new king, all the time keeping his eyes locked on Naradoc’s furious gaze.

  ‘You made the fatal mistake, my lord was-king, of failing to safeguard your own position once you were obliged to put on your crown. Those first few years on the throne are never easy, are they? There’s always such a fine balance to be trod between being too harsh and seeming too soft. In hindsight I’d say you should have found a way to quietly dispose of your younger brother. I believe that hunting accidents are a favourite means of both avoiding future conflict in the family and showing your teeth to the surviving members to put them in their place, but then that’s not really your style, is it? Such a shame, when a judiciously timed murder or two can often avert a great deal of inconvenience …’

  He glanced across at the king’s younger brother, smiling at the predatory look with which he was staring at Naradoc’s back. ‘It’s just as well your sibling doesn’t seem overly troubled by the morality of arranging for your disposal, now that your situations are reversed.’

  Finding his tongue with the sudden realisation that his death was imminent, Naradoc roared his defiance at the brother who had so comprehensively betrayed him.

  ‘You bloody fools! This man will have you at each other’s throats in days! And you, brother, how long before you too have just such a hunting accident, leaving the way clear for our uncle to take the throne!’

  Even as the feeling that he might have been duped sank into his brother’s eyes, Calgus spoke again, his tone warm in contrast to the words that spelled out the would-be usurper’s fate.

  ‘You know he’s right, my lord. You really are quite exceptionally stupid not to have had the good sense to side with your brother the king, but that’s just a lesson you’ve learned too late. And now that I consider it, I suspect that an accident is somewhat less likely to convince given that we’ll have two victims to mourn …’ He paused, his gaze alighting on the man’s white-faced son, barely into his teens. ‘No, my mistake, of course that will have to be three victims, won’t it?’

  He turned to the two men’s uncle, opening his hands in question.

  ‘Perhaps a family squabble under the influence of an excess of your excellent beer might have more credibility as the regrettable cause of your being forced to take the throne, obviously with the greatest of reluctance? What do you think, my lord, King Brem?’

  1

  Oceanus Germanicus, April, AD 184

  ‘Mercurius? Mercurius is the winged messenger, right?’ The First Tungrian Cohort’s senior centurion shook his head in weary disbelief, rubbing a hand through his thick black hair. ‘We’ve marched all the way from Dacia to the edge of the German Sea, over a thousand miles in every weather from burning sunshine to freezing rain, and now the only thing between my boots and home soil is a mile or two of foggy water …’ He sighed, shaking his head as he stared out into the thick fog. ‘So you’d think a ship called the fucking Mercurius with over a hundred big strong lads at the oars would be moving a little bit quicker than the slow march. This is a bloody warship after all, so surely all the man in charge has to do is say the word to have us skipping across the waves.’

  Tribune Scaurus turned to look at his colleague Julius with an indulgent smile, while the three centurions standing behind him exchanged wry glances.

  ‘Still feeling unwell are you, First Spear?’

  Julius shook his head dourly.

  ‘I’ve puked up everything in my guts, puked once more for good fortune, and then last of all I chewed the round pink thing and swallowed. I’ve nothing left to give, Tribune, and so my body has settled in a state of discontented resentment rather than open rebellion. Now I’m just bored with this snail’s pace that seems to be the best this tub can do.’

  ‘Aphrodite’s tits and hairy muff, don’t let the captain hear you calling his pride and joy a tub! I caught him stroking the ship’s side yesterday, and when he saw I was watching he just gave me one of those looks that said “I know, but what’s a man to do?”’

  Scaurus turned and nodded at the second largest of the four centurions standing about him, a heavily muscled and bearded man in his late twenties.

  ‘Quite so, Centurion Dubnus. The man’s as proud of his command as a legion eagle bearer, and just as likely to reach for the polish from the look of it. Did you not see the way he frowned when the goat they sacrificed before we sailed sprayed blood all over the
deck?’

  The tribune turned back to face Julius, the first spear just as heavily set and with the same thick beard as Dubnus, sharing his brooding demeanour and predisposition to dispensing casual violence to malcontents and laggards, although where the younger man’s thick mane and beard were jet black, the senior centurion’s hair was visibly starting to turn grey.

  ‘And as for your urgency to get your feet on dry land, First Spear, I’d imagine that the Mercurius’s captain is probably equally keen not to run his command ashore in the fog. Apparently we’ll know we’re getting closer when we can hear the Arab Town trumpets, if his navigation’s up to the job. And remember if you will, that for our colleague here a return to Britannia raises fresh questions as to just who might be waiting for us when we arrive.’

  He tipped his head at the least heavily muscled of the centurions, a lean, hawk-faced young man who had sought refuge with the Tungrian cohort two years previously and who was now listening to their conversation with a look of imperturbability, then turned back to his senior centurion.

  ‘News of our return to the province will have gone before us, Julius; you can be assured that the return of two full cohorts of auxiliaries will be of great interest to the governor’s staff. You know as well as I do that there are never enough soldiers to go around. For all we know there might well be senior officers waiting for us when we dock, backed up by a century or two of legionaries fresh from battering the Brigantes back into an appropriate state of subservience. We have to face the possibility that the imperial arrest warrant in the name of Marcus Valerius Aquila, formerly of the praetorian guard, might by now also mention that the fugitive senator’s son is going under the alias of Centurion Marcus Tribulus Corvus of the First Tungrian Cohort. After all, there’s been more than enough time for the authorities to make the connection between those two names, especially when you stop to consider the fact that it’s been over a year since we allowed that blasted corn officer Excingus to escape with the knowledge of our colleague’s true identity.’

  The light of realisation dawned on Julius’s face.

  ‘And that’s why we’re travelling on this warship, rather than wallowing around on the sea with the rest of the men in those bloody awful troop ships? And why we’ve shipped four tent parties of the biggest, nastiest men in the cohort along with their distinctively unpleasant centurion.’

  The last of the officers grinned jovially down at him, his voice a bass growl.

  ‘Well spotted, little brother.’

  Scaurus nodded, his face an impassive mask despite the urge to laugh at the effortless way in which Titus, commander of the Tungrians’ pioneer century, got away with treating his first spear like an uppity younger sibling.

  ‘Indeed it is, First Spear. If we face a welcoming committee, then it may be small enough to be faced down by my rank and your men’s muscle long enough to see Centurion Corvus here safely away into the hills. And if, in the worst case, we’re greeted by too many men to bluff or bully into submission, then our young colleague here can at least surrender with his dignity intact, and without his wife watching or his soldiers indulging in any noble but doomed heroics.’

  He turned sharply to his bodyguard who was lurking a few feet away with a look of inscrutability, although long experience told him that the German would have heard every word.

  ‘That goes for you too, Arminius.’

  The tribune’s German bodyguard grunted tersely, staring morosely out into the fog.

  ‘You will forgive me if I do not promise to follow your command absolutely in this matter, Rutilius Scaurus? You know that I owe the centurion—’

  ‘A life? How could I forget? Every time I turn around to look for you you’re either teaching the boy Lupus how to throw sharp iron about or away watching the centurion’s back as he wades into yet another unequal fight. I sometimes wonder if you’re still actually my slave …’

  A trumpet note sounded far out in the fog that wreathed the silent sea’s black surface, muffled to near inaudibility by the clinging vapour, followed by another, higher in pitch, and the warship’s captain stepped forward with a terse nod.

  ‘That’s the Arab Town horn. Seems we’re making landfall just as planned, Tribune. Your feet will soon be back on solid ground, eh gentlemen?’

  Titus put a spade-like hand on Marcus’s shoulder.

  ‘Never fear, little brother, whether there’s one man or a thousand of them waiting for you, you’ll not be taken while my men and I have wind in our lungs.’

  His friend shook his head, and shrugged without any change of expression.

  ‘No, Bear, not this time. If there are men waiting for me then I’ll surrender to them meekly enough, rather than adding more innocent blood to my bill. And besides, the dreams still tell me that my destiny awaits me in Rome, whether I like it or not.’

  Dubnus nodded, his voice taking on a helpful tone.

  ‘It’s true. He was rolling around in his scratcher for half the night and muttering on about something or other to do with revenge. I put it down to the amount of the captain’s Iberian that he’d consumed earlier in the evening, while I was cursing him for a noisy bastard and trying to get to sleep myself …’

  Marcus nodded with a sad smile.

  ‘It’s a rare night when my father doesn’t rise from the underworld in order to remind me that I am yet to pay Praetorian Prefect Perennis out for the deaths of my family, while our departed colleague Carius Sigilis fingerpaints the same accusatory words in his own blood across whatever flat surface he finds in the dream.’

  Julius and Dubnus rolled their eyes at each other.

  ‘Those words being “The Emperor’s Knives”, right?’

  Marcus nodded at Dubnus’s question. Sigilis, a legionary tribune who had served alongside the Tungrians as they had fought at the sharp end of the struggle to beat off a Sarmatae incursion into Dacia, had named the men who he believed had murdered Senator Aquila and slaughtered his family in the days before he himself had died bloodily at the hands of tribal infiltrators. He had told the young centurion that he had heard the story from the mouth of an informer hired by his own father, a distinguished member of the senatorial order whose disquiet at the increasing frequency of financially motivated judicial assassinations under the new emperor, Commodus, had led him to commission a discreet investigation into the matter.

  ‘Yes Julius, it’s still the same message after all the months that we spent making our way back down the Danubius and the Rhenus. The shades of the departed still harass me night after night, hungry for blood to repay their own, and for revenge which can only be taken in Rome, it seems. I’ll admit that I grow weary of their persistence on the subject, when it seems unlikely I will ever see the city of my birth again in this lifetime.’

  The Arab Town port’s foghorn blew again, the mournful notes distant in the clinging mist, and Marcus turned to stare out at the seemingly impenetrable grey veil.

  ‘So if my time for capture and repatriation has come, I will accept that fate without a fight. It seems to me that I’ve been running long enough.’

  ‘Only in Britannia, eh Tribune?’

  ‘Quite so, Prefect Castus. Quite so …’

  The younger of the two men standing on the Arab Town dockside hunched deeper into his cloak, pulling the garment’s thick woollen hood over his head with a despairing look up into the fog that wreathed the port’s buildings. His companion, a shorter and stockier man who seemed comfortable enough in the wind’s chill, shot him an amused look and then glanced around at the three centuries of hard-bitten legionaries waiting in a long double line behind them. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, he resumed his vigil across the harbour’s almost invisible waters, waiting until the foghorns had been blown again before speaking again.

  ‘Yes, Fulvius Sorex, only in Britannia could the fog be quite this impenetrable. Thirty years of service to Rome has taught me that every province has its endearing little characteristics, those features a man never
forgets once he’s experienced them. In Syria it was the flies that would crawl onto the meat in your mouth while you were chewing, given half a chance. In Judea it was the Jews, and their bloody-minded resentment of our boots on their land almost a century after Vespasian finally crushed their resistance into the dust. In Pannonia it was the cold in winter, harsh enough to freeze a river solid all the way down to its bed, and in Dacia …’

  He fell silent, and after a moment the younger man glanced round to find his companion staring out into the fog with an unfathomable expression.

  ‘And in Dacia?’

  Castus shook his head, a slow smile spreading across his face.

  ‘Ah, the rest of the morning wouldn’t be long enough to do Dacia justice. But, and this is my point, this misty, swamp-ridden, rain-soaked nest of evil-tempered, blue-painted madmen gives Dacia some bloody stiff competition. Let’s just say that …’ His expression hardened. ‘There! There they are!’

  He thrust out an arm to point at a dark spot in the murk, and his companion narrowed his eyes to gaze in the indicated direction, nodding slowly.

  ‘You know I do believe you’re right, Prefect Castus. I can hear the oars.’

  As they watched, huddling into their cloaks for warmth, the indistinct shape gradually coalesced out of the fog and hardened into the predatory lines of a warship being propelled slowly across the harbour’s dark-green water by slow, careful strokes of its banked oars.

  ‘That will be what we’ve been waiting for, I presume?’

  Sorex nodded in reply to the older man’s question.

  ‘I expect so. That, and the First Tungrian Cohort, or so the despatch said, with the Second Cohort to follow in a few days’ time. Bloody auxiliaries …’